New Delhi: Saba Pataudi, daughter of actor Sharmila Tagore and former Indian cricket captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, said her mother converted to Islam before marriage because it was considered a necessity for the union to be recognised.
“So you know, with my grandmother, who would surely not have allowed it in any other way, it would have been important for her to do so,” Saba, a jewellery designer, told Siddharth Kannan at his talk show.
Before the marriage, Tagore converted to Islam and took the name Begum Ayesha Sultana. She has previously spoken about the challenges she faced while marrying across faiths. In an interview with Barkha Dutt, she revealed that her family received threats over the decision.
“In Kolkata, when I was getting married, my parents were getting telegrams saying that bullets shall speak. And Tiger’s family (Mansoor Ali Khan) was also getting… they were getting a little worried,” she had said.
Tagore also recalled that when she arrived in Delhi, two people from the Central Bureau of Intelligence (CBI) came to provide protection.
‘Father was liberated in his thought’
Saba, meanwhile, said in the podcast that the conversion was also important to ensure that the marriage was legally recognised at the time.
“Even as Amma has said in an interview, in those days conversion was also necessary, and the children were legitimate because of conversion. Things are legalised, so it was a necessity,” she added.
Saba also credited her father for being progressive in his outlook and allowing Sharmila to retain her individuality after marriage. She pointed out that he never insisted that the actress change her surname in her passport or other official documents,
“My father was so liberated in his thought that my mother was still working. Till date, they didn’t insist that she change her name from Sharmila in her passport or in anything that would have stopped her from carrying on with her career,” Saba said.
(Edited by Saptak Datta)